Several weeks ago, my family traveled to Salem, Indiana; where my dad grew up on a farm outside of town.  We hadn’t been there in a few years; my dad, Sally, my sister, Mark and Leslie, my brother and his wife, and Kenny, my nephew.  It was the first trip for Liyuan, my daughter and the second for my youngest, Olivia, though she was too little to remember her first trip.

It was a great time of reconnecting with relatives, some of which I haven’t seen since before I graduated from high school.  It was a remarkable time.  My dad got to see his only surviving sibling, Barbara, as well as a lot of nieces and nephews and even some of their children.  Daddy’s friend Guy spent one day with us.  Guy is the reason my dad met my mom over 60+ years ago.  And as wonderful as all that is, we got to do all of that on the very farm Dad grew up on because my cousin, Jeff and his wife still live in the house Jeff’s grandparents raised 6 children.  Not many of us have that opportunity.

While the house looks much the same, the barn, wash house, and more are long gone, new barns stand proud as Jeff and Teresa have created a life in the midst of this history.  They don’t grow the crops my grandparents once grew; they raise cattle as long ago, they also raise dogs.  Much has changed but much is the same.  You can still walk down in the “holler” and find the steam engine train tank that decades ago was cut in half and taken down to the natural spring that still runs out of the hill.  My dad and his brothers “rode” this tank down as they placed it there.  The water is just as cold as it was when I was a child.  You can keep working your way down and down the hills until you get to the bottom field that once provided for the Doyle family.  You can still sit on the corner porch swing and swing high enough to touch the roof with your toes and back far enough to touch the roof with your hands.  I didn’t however, because there is siding where once there was wood on the corner which eventually was wrapped with sheet metal because it had been hit so many times by the swing.  My grandmother’s hydrangeas still grow by the porch and the grass, the soft bluegrass, still feels like velvet under your bare feet.

In the midst of the joy of family, food, laughter, and tromping in the woods; in the midst of missing my grandparents, uncles and aunts, and my mom; I realized this farm is the most constant place in my life even though I only spent time there once a year when I was growing up and much less since becoming an adult. After growing up in the same house from the age of 3, I lived in 5 houses for the next 21 years.  In the last 19 years, I’ve lived in 8 homes.  My home is where I live with my family without a doubt.  But if you are like me, having a sense of “place” is comforting.  Having that kind of sense of place means that no matter what storms, travels, changes occur in my life, I can always return.  The people there are my people.  My history there is longer and deeper than my own life.  I BELONG there even if I never have the opportunity to return.  It is a part of me and I am a part of its life and history.

As a person of faith in Christ, this might seem a little silly because my home, my REAL home is not anywhere on this earth.  It is a home I haven’t even seen yet.  There are people that I love already there: my mom, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends.  It is a home that I am excited about and with joy will one day see.  It is a home more wonderful than anything I can envision.  It is my place now and not just yet.  I am thankful my savior leads me each day as I journey closer and closer to this home, my real home, my REAL place.

In the meantime, I will continue to smile as remember the frog legs we would eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner after my Uncles Cleon and Basil along with my dad would spend most of the night to provide for us each year.  I will remember searching in my grandpa’s car for the baby rabbit Daddy found and chased all over the graveyard before he caught it and listening to Grandpa laugh about how long it took him to catch it.  I will remember my Grandma peeling apples while rocking in the kitchen; playing in the barn with my cousins; being so fascinated by Grandpa calling the pigs that I would go with him to feed them; and swinging, swinging, and swinging on the porch.

Maybe you have that “place” in your life that you are a part of and that is a part of you.  I celebrate it for you today.  Unfortunately, there are many who do not have a place of love and safety and history.  I wish I could change that for them and maybe in the coming days, months, and years, it will change.  I hope it does.  I pray it does.  But even if life continues to be uncertain and a struggle, I promise you that you have a home waiting for you, a home being prepared for you as well as for me.  That home built upon God’s love and Christ’s blood is for us all.  And as important and wonderful the Doyle farm is for me, this home, our REAL home; well there will be no comparison.  And I have just one thing to say about that: “Praise God!”

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.  And you know the way to the place where I am going.”                                           John  14:1-4